


Can't Get There From Here

by sephmeadowes



Category: Original Work
Genre: College Kids Trying to Survive, F/M, Hotel, Paris - Freeform, Post-Apocalyptic Sorta, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:21:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26276326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sephmeadowes/pseuds/sephmeadowes
Summary: Shelley felt trapped like a rat in a cage.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	Can't Get There From Here

It could always get worse. At least that’s what her grandmother used to tell her. Things could always get worse than what you were currently going through. Nana Caroline was unfortunately wrong.

To be fair, Nana probably had no idea there would be an alien invasion that turned their world into a dystopian reality. She wasn’t around to warn Shelley not to go on that summer trip to France where she would be stranded in Paris for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t like Shelley could take the Eurostar back to England and a plane was out of the question. She was stuck in a foreign country away from her family.

The hotel she’d been staying at was both her prison and salvation. She couldn’t leave due to the sentinels searching the streets. People were being taken and no one knew what happened to them. Olivia had left the hotel to get help and never came back.

Vanya had found an empty room in the basement with no windows. The hotel had an old steam generator that was giving them enough power for now but they didn’t know how long it would last. The hotel staff had disappeared in the first week. They had to fend for themselves.

Information was scarce as the communication lines were the first thing to go, leaving them unable to hear news. They couldn’t contact their families. They were sitting ducks in an old hotel that had seen better days. And Shelley felt trapped like a rat in a cage.

The aliens had released a neurotoxin that affected everyone over the age of fifty or with a weak immune system. They had watched helplessly as Alfie had convulsed on the floor before his lungs gave out. The elderly resident across from their old room, Mrs. Broucher, had collapsed in the middle of breakfast.

She should count herself lucky that she was young and healthy. But the thought of just running out in the streets was becoming more and more an absurdly good idea. Vanya wouldn’t let her though. He’d deluded himself into thinking he was her protector.

He went raiding to the kitchens again. The other residents never really left their rooms unless they really had to, fearing infection. The giant freezer in the kitchens was thankfully still working and they had left the perishable goods in there instead of keeping it in their room. Vanya cooked them a giant omelet to share that smelled heavenly.

He placed down the tray on her bed and handed her a fork. She took a bite and was shocked at how spicy it was. She took a big sip from the can of pineapple juice he brought as well.

“Too spicy?” He laughed. “Sorry.”

“Warn a girl next time,” She took another sip. “It’s like pepper spray in a bite.”

He laughed again. “It’s not that spicy. You need to broaden your mild English palette.”

“Not all of us have your Russian mobster toughness.”

In response, he took a big bite of those damned spicy eggs and didn’t look the least bit perturbed. The lights flickered. She looked up worriedly. The boiler had gone out last week and luckily one of the hotel residents was a former plumber and gave them instructions through the door.

Not that it had been easy working on the boiler in the dark with one of them holding up a flashlight and trying to read the instructions Mr. Pascal wrote for them. There had been the added fear of the boiler exploding. It wasn’t an experience either of them wanted to repeat.

“Maybe it just needs cleaning again,” Vanya assured her. “I’ll check on it later.”

“I’ll go with you.”

He pointed out, “You hate the boiler room.”

“It beats having to listen to the residents complain about the diminishing supply of toilet paper,” She sighed. “Who knew toilet paper would be a prized commodity in the apocalypse?”

He finished the last bite of the omelet and picked up the tray, going to the ensuite bathroom to wash it in the sink. They still had running water. She stood by the bathroom door and watched him, paying attention to the veins in his arms. He was her only social stimulus for weeks and being away from him felt unusual.

“You’re staring again,” he pointed out. “It’s creepy, Shel.”

“I’m just staring at how ugly you are.”

He laughed, shaking his head at her fib. If anything, Vanya was the opposite of ugly. With golden hair and a jawline that could cut glass, he was too pretty for words. And he knew it too.

He finished with the plate and set it down to the side. After drying his hands on the rag they kept nearby, he left the bathroom and grabbed his rucksack. “Let’s go to the seventh floor.”

Nobody used the elevators anymore. They took up too much power and they were scared the sound would attract the sentinels to go inside the hotel. There was also the added fear if the boiler stopped working while they were inside. They had to take the stairs which was good for cardio but still torturous.

Vanya, who was an athlete, enjoyed the exercise and encouraged her to keep going even as her lungs felt they were about to jump out of her body. After she was able to catch her breath again, they made their way through the rooms. They had grabbed the key cards at the front desk and had checked the guest logs if anyone was still there and it appeared to be an empty floor.

They mostly went for any food or drinks in the mini bar and toiletries in the bathrooms. They tried to work quickly, grabbing what they needed and going. The rooms in the hotel were all styled identical, making it easier for them to know where things were. They knew the rooms at the top floor would be bigger and might have more things but she didn’t really want to climb all the way to the fourteenth floor if she could help it.

She swiped the key card on the last room and stepped into the room, heading straight for the mini fridge and froze. There was body on the floor. It was the bellboy that helped them with their luggage when they arrived. There was blood on the walls and the floor, in his hand was a revolver.

She didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t keep corpses in the hotel and had no way of burying them so they had been taking them out for the sentinels to find. The older guests had taken out Mrs. Broucher’s body. Vanya had taken care of Alfie’s body.

She never had to directly see the bodies. The bellboy must’ve been there for a while as there was the smell of decay that was overwhelming. She stumbled back into the hallway and collapsed on the floor, clutching her legs to her chest. She was trying her best not to vomit all over the carpet.

Vanya had finished with another room and came over, concerned. “You okay, Shel?”

“There’s a…there’s a body,” She covered her face in her hands. “I don’t know what to do.”

He crouched down and patted her shoulder. “Stay here.”

She didn’t know how long she sat there on the floor, hiding like a child as Vanya went into the room. He came back and told her to go back to their room. She walk down the stairs in a daze, moving slower than normal until she finally reached the basement. Curling up on her bed, she closed her eyes and tried to block out the sight of the bellboy’s rotting face.

Vanya came back later, exhausted. He dropped his rucksack on the table and started emptying it. She sat up and watched him and her eyes widened at the revolver.

She demanded, “Why did you take that?”

“Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

He sighed and turned to her. “The supplies in this place aren’t endless and that boiler won’t hold on forever.”

They both knew that. They worried about it every day. There wasn’t much to do these days except worry and wonder. About their futures, about their family, about whatever that was between them was something besides friendship in a highly traumatic situation.

“We can’t stay here long,” He glanced at their meager supplies of canned soda and little shampoo bottles. “We’ll eventually need to leave and Moscow is only a few days from here.”

“You want us to go to your family.”

“They’ll take us in and I don’t know if Russia has fallen,” He went to her, kneeling before her. His blue eyes were intense and sincere. “If need be, we can go rough it up in the Urals. The sentinels couldn’t get us there.”

It sounded tempting and wonderful. And it was terrifying and impossible. They could caught before they could even get out of France. Russia was freezing and she couldn’t run a mile without passing out. There was so many things that could go wrong with his plan.

But it was hope. And that was what they both needed as things began to worsen around them. Vanya was the solid rock against a roaring ocean. She would go with him to the ends of the earth.

“Okay,” she finally replied. “You’re insane but okay.”

He smiled and it was like the sun after a long winter. She leaned her forehead against his and accepted his constant comfort. Even before the apocalypse, he’d been the quiet but dependable force in their group. He rose up in their time of need and was the first to action, to think and plan a solution to their dilemmas.

He even stood taller now. A soldier rising to the call of war and he did not balk. She remembered the revolver in the room and prayed they never had to use it. Whether it was on somebody else or at themselves, she hoped they never had to pull the trigger.

Vanya’s warm but calloused hands from years of rugby, cupped her cheek almost reverently. “Is it wrong to tell you how I feel in the middle of all this chaos?”

“Maybe,” She held unto his hand on her face. “Did you even think of me like that before all this happened? Or is it just the situation that’s messing you up?”

He shook his head. “I fancied you since I met you.”

That honestly surprised her. Vanya had never given any indication he liked her more than a friend. For a while, she thought he preferred Olivia. Anybody but her.

“And you didn’t make a move because…?”

“I was going to. This summer was going to be the time I romanced the socks off you,”  h e answered. “Why do you think I suggested Paris for our trip?”

“I just can’t believe that you fancied me all this time.”

He smiled softly. “You’re the only one besides my family that can call me ‘Vanya’.”

She remembered meeting him after a rugby match. Olivia had dragged her to the pub and Alfie introduced them to the new rugby player, Ivan Burton. His cousin had been on the team as well and had called him ‘Vanya’ in passing. And when she accidentally called him that, he hadn’t minded.

“You can call me Vanya,” he insisted. “It’s cute when you say it.”

In the present, finally seeing all the little moments she’d ignored, she felt like slapping herself. Instead, she groaned. “I’ve been so blind.”

Vanya shrugged. “A little bit. There were a _lot_ of mixed signals for a time.”

She ran her fingers through his golden hair and it was as soft as she always imagined it. Even with the hotel shampoo that had not been doing her hair any favors.

“Just so you know, I fancied you too before the world ended.”

“Good.”

He moved closer and she found herself staring at the wicked quirk of his mouth. The kiss was softer than she expected, hesitant and nervous. But it was still lovely. They would get better overtime.

She still was unsure about the future. Whether they would even reach bloody Moscow but she was going to hope. And that was enough for now.


End file.
